Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to communications networks and more particularly to providing selectable greetings or responses to a request to initiate a communication.
Today, it is very common, and probably the norm, for an individual to have and regularly use a number of communications devices of different types that communicate via a variety of different media. For example, an individual may, on a daily basis, use a number of different telephones such as a work line, a home line, one or more cell phones, etc. Additionally, this same individual may have and use a number of other communications devices and/or media such as one or more email accounts, one or more instant message accounts, etc. that are accessible through any of a number of different devices such as personal computers, various portable devices, and/or other network attached devices that communicate via the Internet or other network.
Some or even all of the device may provide for answering or responding to communications in a fixed manner. For example, each telephone may have associated therewith a voicemail box or account. Furthermore, each voicemail box or account can have a greeting or message to be played to a caller upon receipt of a call. Other types of devices or communication media may also provide for responding to communications in a fixed manner. For example, an email account may provide for fixed responses such as an “out-of-office” auto reply etc.
However, managing these fixed responses, especially between multiple devices or communications media can be burdensome. For example, if a user wants to change his voicemail greetings to indicate that he is unavailable today, he would have to change multiple greetings, i.e., one for each of his voicemail boxes. Furthermore, even if these greetings or messages could be commonly defined for multiple devices, there is no way for the user to define multiple possible greetings that can be selected automatically or interactively in response to a communication. For example, there is no way for a user to commonly define one greeting or message to be presented to one individual or group of individuals and another greeting or message to be presented to a different individual or group of individuals. So, for example, a user cannot define one greeting or message to be presented to business associates and another to be presented to friends and/or relatives. Hence, there is a need for methods and systems that allow for providing selectable greetings or responses to a request to initiate a communication.